Accounts of the single life... in your 40s

Rachel Henderson, Psychotherapist and hypnotherapist (42)

"I don't feel that I'm desperate to meet somebody. What's most important to get right for me at the moment is to have a good sense of who I am.

"I really like the phrase 'healthy love is a matter of being the right partner, not finding the right person.' I have been in long-term relationships - but with men who were emotionally unavailable.

"What I've discovered since my last long-term relationship is that in order to stop attracting emotionally unavailable men into my life, I have to learn to appreciate myself more. Once you're in a good space yourself, life seems to take care of itself, and the right opportunities tend to present themselves when you are least looking for them."

She says that she is one of the last in her group of friends who isn't a parent. " I don't feel any pressure, but when I was in my 20s I would have thought that I'd have had a clatter of children by now.

"I have to appreciate that this is the way my life has panned out. There are a lot of women who settle for a less-than-ideal person because of their biological clocks.

"I live on my own, but I have a lot of friends, a sister and neighbours, and I am involved in the lives of other children: I am very close to two-year-old twin girls of one of my oldest friends.

"There are people who are self-sufficient and don't want to have a partner, but I am not one of them. I do believe that good intimate relationships are life-enhancing, but as a single person I have learned to develop a healthy balance between time at work and time with myself, my friends and my family. And I try not to neglect any particular area."